


Pain Is the Only Thing You Trust

by We_Have_Become_Anathema



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 07:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/We_Have_Become_Anathema/pseuds/We_Have_Become_Anathema
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I want you to trust me, but you always fight so hard against that. I try to show you any kindness and you bristle, ready for an attack.” […] “Pain seems to be the only thing that you trust, even your brother told you to trust it. So I create a world for you, dysfunctional at best, because you won’t believe me if I create one that you can just rest in. I try to keep you from the horrors of the Cage, but you can’t appreciate what I do for you, so I have to play the villain because you won’t accept me in any other role."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pain Is the Only Thing You Trust

**Author's Note:**

> This story was birthed from an amazing RP I had with http://iron-king-of-winter.tumblr.com/. I rewrote it some, so that it would flow a bit better in one tone of voice, but for the most part this didn't need much editing. 
> 
> I'm still looking for a beta, so this piece has only had me reading over it 5-6 times for proofreading. If you'd like to proofread any future works of mind, please let me know. I would be most grateful. :D  
> Enjoy.

Sam was sitting on an uncomfortable bed in an unremarkable motel room, like any of the hundreds of motels rooms that he had stayed in over the course of his life, waiting for Dean's return and trying to pass the time by reading a book, but his mind continually drifted elsewhere.

            Lucifer appear next to the window, resting his hip on the sill, “Another day, another dump, eh Sam?” Critical eyes surveyed the dingy room, “So bunk mate, anything good in your book? Haven’t seen you try to read in a while.”

            “Well, you could try and leave me alone.” The young man said with a lack of conviction, too engrossed in his book to pay the hallucination much thought. “It’s the Karamazovs, if you must know. Pretty good.”

            “Right…” Lucifer drawled out, “but where would that leave me? Besides Tolstoy is much better if you’re really looking for a Russian author.” He gave Sam a sympathetic wince, as if everyone should know that, before setting his book on fire. “Now come on, are we going to sit around and discuss book club all day?” He paused and gave that a moment’s thought. “We actually could, if it would get you to have a decent conversation with me.”

            Sam threw down the burning book and vaulted off the side of the bed, folding his long legs nearly to his chest, his hunter-trained reflexes reacting instantaneously to get water before it could set the room on fire. “Damn you!” He sighed, before the absurdity of the conversation struck him. “Wait, so you’re telling me you actually read?”

            The angel hid a smile behind his hand as Sam grabbed water to put out a fire that didn’t exist; he just loved messing with Sam’s perception of reality. “Well, I was trapped in the Cage for a few billion years with nothing to do but watch the Earth and talk to the demons. What do you think I did? I watched the Earth and listened, Sam, for countless years.” Lucifer puffed up with a bit of pride then, preening himself, plucking at invisible dust. “I know every language that you mud monkeys have ever invented, every influential text you’ve ever written.” Rolling a wrist, a bloated body dropped from the ceiling and he used its hanging, mutilated form to lean on, “I would say that I’m a walking, talking receptacle of knowledge. A tome? Encyclopedia, perhaps?”

            “So… Google?” Sam suggested, looking slightly disgusted with the body. Of course it wasn’t real – where the hell would it have been hidden before – but still, Lucifer just _had_ to do things like that.

            Lucifer tapped his nose and then pointed towards Sam, winking. “There we go, keep it relevant to your generation.” His tone was light and conspiratorial. Grabbing the rusted and putrid chain that suspended the body he swung under the corpse, careful not to get any of the bodily fluids on him, and stalked over to the unoccupied second bed. As he perched on the edge, he snapped and the body retracted into the ceiling as if it had never been there.

            “So what are your favorites?” He was talking about literature with the Devil... Could it get any crazier? He was losing his mind and he knew it. Sam half halfheartedly considered ending the conversation right then, pressing the old scar that no longer had enough potency to even faze the devil on his shoulder, perhaps just ignoring him completely. But what would be the point? He knew from experience that ignoring the man only caused him to use increasingly audacious and invasive means of garnering his attention, and he just didn't feel like having his skin filleted off his muscles today.

            Content in the knowledge that Sam wasn’t going to try and squeeze his palm to make his ‘hallucinations’ go away any moment, Lucifer edged himself a little further onto the bed to get comfortable, resting against the backrest. He placed his hands behind his head, lacing his fingers, and crossing his feet at the ankles, tapping out a silent tune in his head. “Well, that’s a bit of a difficult question…” Thinking back through the years, his mind sifted the endless novels and novelettes he’d read and listened to and overheard in passing. “Obviously certain genres are more appealing than others. I loved The Prince by Machiavelli. And while portrayed as something of a villain in Paradise Lost by Milton, no one can deny the beauty with which the man captured the torment and harrowing loss of Heaven. However, there is a surprising amount of material in science fiction that I find intriguing. Stranger in a Strange Land was unexpectedly honest for a work by human hands.” Closing his eyes for a moment, his breath let out in puffs as the temperature around him chilled as he thought. “Ah, and of course, as heretical as it might have been, Good Omens was a pleasurable read.”

            Sam remembered having picked up a paperback copy of the rather satirical book a few years back while he was still at Stanford, before he knew angels were real and demons were something he had only hunted on the rare occassion years before going off to college. “Oh, that was a good one. Is the Crowley in it ‘our’ Crowley?” Remembering the plot of the book, he couldn’t help but note that they actually averted the Apocalypse. And Lucifer still liked it? Odd.

            Lucifer opened an eye lazily to half-mast and glanced over at Sam, flicking out his forked tongue to lip his chapped lips, independently, “Obviously not. Although the name being the same is humorous, but I doubt ‘our’ Crowley, as you say, would be able to survive having all of his music become a Best of Queen cassette.” he replied with a shrug. “And yes Sam, I can appreciate something for its literary satire without agreeing with how it ends.” he answered the unspoken question in Sam’s mind.

            “Well, how about the Master and Margarita?” He kind of like it, although having an Azazello there made him a bit nervous. But Woland was a much nicer Satan than the one here.

            Grinning like the cat that ate the canary, he couldn’t help but reply to Sam’s thoughts again, “Ah, yes… Azazel was in Russia around that time. Might have had a hand to play in that novel.” Smirking, he let that small bomb drop into his companion’s lap.

            “But… why was he _helping_ Margarita? Instead of, you know, ceiling and burn?”

            “It’s literature, and therefore, perhaps a little romanticized?” Lucifer replied. “He had more than a few plots going on around that time.”

            “Oh, why am I not surprised.” The Winchester rolled his eyes, sitting forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “These Russians had a lot to do with the Devil. Wait…” His eyes swiftly latched onto the angel’s, “did you actually appear to Ivan Karamazov just like you do with me?”

            Lucifer searched Sam’s eyes for a moment before shaking his head, “No, I was trapped in the Cage, and the seals to open it were rather specific, remember?” The lilting tone to his voice was almost kind, under a slight needling. “However I’m sure some greater demon did appear to him, claiming the title of Devil. I never liked the title myself; after all, it’s not my name. It’s not even a title that I assigned myself, but something that you humans invented.”

            Sam made a noncommittal noise. “Right, but you’re in the Cage now and yet you’re still here.”

            “Oh come ooooooon, Sammy boy, I’ve told you before. This,” He pulled his hands out from behind his head and gesticulated around him to the nondescript hotel room, “isn’t real. This is just another torture, bunk buddy. The best one yet, if I do say so myself. Because at the end of the day, do you really think that you, that either of us, could get OUT of the Cage?” Slipping his legs off the edge of the bed, he leaned forward, gazing intently, almost hungrily at Sam, “The Cage was made to be opened for the Apocalypse, mate, through 66 seals. You think some little angel of Thursdays could just fly down and steal your body? Or that death could traipse down and steal your soul from me? No, you said yes, and let me in. And I don’t share well with others.”

            “Stop it!” Sam shouted, recoiling slightly, his long bangs falling into his face and obscuring his eyes. “Just stop it. Take me back, torture me however you want, just not with this!”

            He gave a purely devilish smirk and whispered, “Don’t like me playing with your reality, Sammy?”

            Just then the cellphone on the small jade coloured formica table in the miniscule kitchenette began vibrating, buzzing as it moved across the surface of the stained table.

            “Oh, wonder if that’s Dean…” The angel said with a languid smile. “You better get that.”

            In that moment he almost believed that the phone wasn’t really ringing, that Lucifer made it up. However, there was still the chance that it really was Dean calling, and he couldn’t just let Lucifer keep jerking his chain like this, so Sam sighed and wearily pushed himself off the bed, walking over to the kitchenette across the shag carpet in his bare feet; trying to garner some relief in the reality of sensations, his slow breaths in and out, the slight tug of the carpet as he slid his feet across it, not quite picking them up all the way as he took the few steps across the room. He picked up, trying not to show any hesitancy, only to find out that there was no one on the other end, no one had been calling at all. He put it down, shaking, breathing heavily, and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate and repeat to himself that it wasn’t real, but it was getting harder. Why hadn’t Dean come back yet?

            Lucifer spoke Sam’s fears for him, as he so often did, “How long has it been, Sam, since you’ve seen Dean?” He had moved in the space of time that it had taken Sam to pick up the phone, suddenly behind Sam, too close and radiating cold like the depths of space. “I mean, last time that he took you somewhere, it was me, right buddy? Are you sure your phones are even on? Even charged?” The coppery tang of blood was filling the room, overpoweringly strong as the walls began to weep and a dark whisper sounded from under the floorboards.

            “What have you done with him?” He yelled, turning around and grabbing Lucifer’s shirt. The cold embracing him like a cloud. “Was it you all this time? Even when he told me you weren’t real?” He was one step away from insanity. The more he thought about it, the more real Lucifer seemed.

            Holding up his hands defensively, trying to look innocent but failing because of the cant to his smile and the twinkle in his eyes, Lucifer replied, “Now Sam, I’m just a hallucination. What could I have done with your brother.” His grin turned positively feral then, as his hands fell forward and cupped Sam’s face, “But I was getting so tired of hearing him tell you that he was your ‘stone number one’. We’re made for each other, Sam, literally. I’m all you should ever need, so can you blame me if I just wanted a little alone time with you?”

            “You’re lying. You are always lying.” Sam looked at him in despair. “Don’t try. I would never... you kinslaying son of a bitch.”

            “Oh, my poor, broken, beautiful thing.” Lucifer said sadly, looking into Sam’s eyes that raged with such desperation. “I promised you that I would never lie to you, but promises don’t mean much of anything without trust.” Pulling his hands away from Sam’s face, he noticed that he’d left two bloody hand prints on the man’s face. Ah, well.

            "Yeah? Well you also promised you'd never hurt me, but looks like you only keep some of your promises, only the convenient ones?" he spat the insinuation at Lucifer like acid, wishing mere words had the power to banish his personal Adversary, but they never did. For all the rage that Lucifer seemed to possess, he had an infuriating ability to overlook, or perhaps forgive, any of the wretched things that Sam said out of anger or fear or hurt. Sam hated that, he wanted his words to hurt and strike home and fester, just like Lucifer's did to him. Sam wanted to run away, but there was nowhere to run where Lucifer couldn’t follow. If all this was just false reality, even the banishing sigil wouldn’t work, and it was only temporary anyway. The Colt was lost and useless anyway. Holy fire… well, they saw how much good it did against Michael, not to mention he didn’t have any oil on hand. He was trapped and Lucifer was right – broken.

            “Sam, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It all depends on how you look at it.” Waving a hand, the room returned to normal, free from the overpowering stench of burning flesh and the metallic scent of blood. And sure enough, Satan seemed to waltz right past Sam's accusation, paying it no heed. “Do you remember how good it felt when we worked together? When I found all of Azazel’s demons who had manipulated you your whole life and we took them down…” He silently padded around Sam, stopping behind his back, placing his hands on the youth’s shoulders, whispering into his ear. “Just think how good it would be if we worked together again, Sam. Nothing could stop us. Why are you so content on letting yourself suffer for a world that doesn’t care? For a brother who doesn’t trust you, who’s just waiting for you to screw up again?”

            “No,” he whispered, his posture stiff against the contact. “Dean is the only one who I’ve got left, and you’re not twisting that. He’s never let me down, not when it counted.” But he wasn’t so sure. What if the real Dean had been long dead? What if all the time since he got out it was Lucifer posing as Dean?

            Again Lucifer seemed to crawl into Sam’s head and pull out his thoughts like so much cotton candy, billowing and expanding out with worries and fears. “Right, because it makes so much sense that Dean’s been pulled out of Hell by a meager angel of Thursdays, or that he was resurrected by divine intervention when God seems otherwise so apathetic, or that your father made a deal with good old Yellow Eyes to save his life. Or, or, or…. Mhmmm.” He crossed his arms and nodded, rolling his eyes. “Sam, I hate to break it to you, but do you really believe that both you and your brother are these pivotal players in some celestial plan, so pivotal in fact, that Heaven will keep breaking all the rules to bring your brother back from the dead? Is it just me, or is that starting to sound like a little too much deus ex machina, even for your lives?”

            Lucifer was making sense. Again. “We were vessels. You needed us.” Sam’s words sounded hollow, even to his own ears. And even if that was true, they were no longer needed now. When was he ever truly needed? Whoever wanted him – Azazel, the angels, Ruby – it was always to achieve their own ends. He was just something they could throw away. Why would these powerful beings ever really care? And Dean… Dean outlived his usefulness to them the moment Michael got into Adam.

            “Oh Sam, it’s not past tense.” Lucifer lowered his hands from Sam’s shoulders and wrapped them around Sam’s waist, blood trailing over where his hand’s touched. “You are my vessel, Sam, the one true thing in this universe that was ever made solely for me. MFEO, remember? My Grace has always called out to your Soul, Sam.”

            “And what could you achieve with me when you’re locked in the Cage? Stop that!” He tried to free himself, disgust clear on his face.

            Lucifer vanished again, reappearing a few moments later against the banister, “As you wish…”

            “You didn’t answer my question.” Sam fumed quietly, anger and despair fighting for dominance. “What does it matter whether you’re in a vessel or not if you’re trapped in the Cage?”

            “Falling into the Cage separated us,” and the very way Lucifer said it spoke of the agony of the action. “Being one is communion. To have that stolen away after having tasted it was… is, one of the most painful things that I have ever had to go through.” Something dark and fearsome passed behind his icy blue eyes, and he curled one of his hands into a fist, until the nails were biting into the flesh and the blood was flowing freely down his forearm. “As an angel, I was built for communion, Sam, with my Father, with the Host. In the Cage, I was cut off from all of Heaven, forced to watch Earth and the unwashed masses of humans that I hated. All I could do was hold onto the hope of my vessel, that someday I would have one perfect gift in this world again… Can you possibly fathom what a blessing you are Sam? Or how deeply your actions cut through me?” His words were sharp as knives, curt and crisp, as he tried to reign in his anger.

            “Oh, here we are, the sob story again. Am I supposed to give you a hug?” His voice was filled with hate. “You got exactly what you deserved.”

            “And why is that?” Lucifer asked with eloquence, “Because I am the ‘bad guy’? Because I’m Satan?” The name came off his tongue with obvious distaste. “Enlighten me as to the gravity of my crimes.”

            Sam gave him an incredulous look, as if he couldn’t believe that Lucifer could dare to feign ignorance of his villainy. “Toying with me like this, for a start. Killing Gabriel. Creating demons. My mother died because of you and your minions. So did my father and Jess. But of course, the great Lucifer never did anything wrong! It was all God’s fault or Michael’s fault, keep repeating that to yourself, you whiny little bitch.”

            “Sam, I did not create the demons. They’re twisted humans, and trust me; they needed no help from me to fall from grace. It just so happens that my Cage is in Hell, so they believed me to be their progenitor. They had their uses in some respects, I won’t deny that I used them to guide events here and there from inside the Cage, my hands aren’t that clean. However, I begged my brothers to stand with me, and I would have done anything to have not had to kill Gabriel…”

            “I would probably believe you if you weren’t playing games.” Sam sighed. “Is that what you want? Make me believe? Which truth? The one where you’re the good guy? The one where I’m still trapped? The one where you tell me you are just a hallucination? What do you _want_? I can’t get you out, even if I allow you back in.”

            “Oh Sam. I want you to trust me, but you always fight so hard against that. I try to show you any kindness and you bristle, ready for an attack. I tell you how I’ve been wronged, and suddenly I’m whining.” Lucifer crossed his arms and sighed, shaking his head, fingers massaging the bridge of his nose. “Pain seems to be the only thing that you trust, even your brother told you to trust it. So I create a world for you, dysfunctional at best, because you won’t believe me if I create one that you can just rest in. I try to keep you from the horrors of the Cage, but you can’t appreciate what I do for you, so I have to play the villain because you won’t _accept_ me in any other role. Do you see our dilemma?”

            “Oh, yes.” he responded with obvious sarcasm before trying to press on his old wound, but it didn’t hurt enough to make Lucifer go away. He knew it wouldn’t. Lucifer was real. He was finally broken enough to admit that. “I’m tired, Lucifer. Really tired.” And he meant it.

            Lucifer placed a hand over his mouth and waved at the bed, thinking a moment. Then he walked over and scooped up the discarded Karamazov novel that Sam had been reading earlier. “Get some rest. You were good enough to actually talk to me today, which I appreciate, greatly. I’ll make do with the novel for a while.” He sounded like it was a poor replacement for Sam’s witty repartee, but there was something in his tone as he turned and walked over to the formica table and settled into one of the plastic chairs that spoke of an appreciation, or perhaps a debt owed. “I’ll keep a watch in case your precious Dean comes back…”

            “Do you think I can sleep while you’re here?” Sam sniped, but there was almost no bite to his words, just a tired resignation, as his shoulders slumped forward. He wasn’t talking about sleep anyway. “Knowing for sure it’s all fake, all illusion? No, I’m done with this. All of it.”

            The apparition looked over at Sam and placed the book down on the table, “Planning something more permanent, are we?” He asked in a sickly sweet tone that reminded Sam of cloves and arsenic.

            Sam just huffed. He knew he’d go to Hell, but he just didn’t care anymore. Anything was better than this.

            “Well, you know how to end it all.” Lucifer placed his chin in his hand and cocked his head to one side, looking over at Sam with something just shy of compassion in his eyes. Then he lifted his head slightly, replacing his hand with just his first two fingers under his chin, shaping his hand to look like a gun. He slowly curled down his thumb and mimed a bullet going through his head, a thin lipped smile on his face, almost a grimace. “Don’t worry Sammy; I’ll hold you as you die.”

            The Winchester gave him a cold glare before he walked over to his bed, and then he got his gun from under his starched, under stuffed pillow and loaded it. “I suppose I can’t make you give me some privacy, so you can hold me if you want it so much.”

            “It was just an offer…” He said, sounding nonplussed.

            Picking up a pen and the small complementary note pad from the nightstand, Sam stared at it with bloodshot eyes, unblinking. He had to leave a message to Dean, even if he probably wasn’t going to return, or wasn’t real to begin with. But he couldn’t think of anything. He knew Dean would go mad with grief, but even that wasn’t enough to hold him back. Even knowing Dean would be all alone. No more Lisa, no more Cas, no more Bobby. But he was no use in this state anyway. He threw the pen and pad down. What could he say and what was the point of it anyway? Dean would know exactly why he did it.

            Lucifer watched his actions with a detached interest, a slim smirk hidden behind a hand on his face. “You’re leaving Dean and running from me… you don’t have much left, do you?”

            “You made sure I didn’t.” his response was harsh and cold, resigned. Sam mused what would be the best angle. He took up the gun and studied it. It was not the first time he'd really taken the time to _look_ at a gun, but it was the first time he was coldly calculating and meaning to actually use it on himself.

            “Ah yes, because it’s through my careful machinations that your life is bereft of any joy, I forgot,” the angel said in mock sincerity. “You’re giving me far too much credit. It’s not as if I’m God. I control a few things through manipulation, but I hardly control the ineffable plan.”

            “God can fuck himself.” Sam said bitterly. “And Dean and I pretty much screwed the ineffable plan in the face, remember? Team free will…” He paused a long while before looking Lucifer in the eyes. “What’s the best angle?”

            Lucifer used his hand to mime a gun again and showed Sam, holding the gun so that it would hit the spinal column and instantly kill him.

            “Thanks.” He stood up, placed the gun as Lucifer showed, and his eyes softened a bit. “Hold me. Please. Let me pretend a bit more, for one last time, that Dean is with me.”

            Lucifer stood up and his face shifted, seemingly burning and melting at the same time, and then he was suddenly Dean. “Course, Sammy. I’ll always have your back, Sasquatch.” He walked forward in that peculiar, confident gait of Dean’s until he was right in front of Sam and his arms were encapsulating his little brother. “Don’t worry, Sammy, I got ya. I’ve gotcha…” Green eyes squeezed tight as one hand fisted into the flannel shirt Sam was wearing, pulling his brother’s chest tight against his own.

            That was enough. He just hoped the real Dean wouldn’t come back, wouldn’t know, as he held on tightly to the fake with his free hand. He felt tears burning his eyes but he had to be strong. “I’m sorry, Dean. I’m so sorry,” he whispered as he pulled the trigger.

            Dean clutched onto his brother and fell to his knees as the shudder ran through Sam’s body, holding the sudden dead weight tightly against his heart as pain lanced up his legs as they connected with the floor. One hand still fisted in his brother’s shirt, twisting tighter, the other shot up and found its way into the auburn locks, now slick and matted and he didn’t care. “Oh Sammy…” Rocking them both in slow motion, Dean shook his head into his brother’s shoulder. “Good night Sammy.” Letting out a deep breath when he was sure that Sam's Soul was slipping from its mortal coil, his mind swiftly shutting down, Dean’s face burned away to reveal Lucifer’s in an expression so soft and mournful and lost. “I am so very sorry, Samuel.” He brushed a few bangs from Sam’s peaceful, unmarred face, placed a chaste kiss against his temple, laid him down on the bed, and then disappeared for the last time.


End file.
